


Sketchbooks and Grief

by RandoFando_Spoonie



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Crying, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief/Mourning, Hurt Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, M/M, Post-Canon, Soft Nicky, They're both soft okay, comforting Nicky, soft joe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-09
Updated: 2020-09-09
Packaged: 2021-03-07 01:22:49
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26378755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RandoFando_Spoonie/pseuds/RandoFando_Spoonie
Summary: At some point post Booker's banishment the Guard are at a new safe house, Joe starts to sketch while watching TV, as the sketch takes shape something buried bursts forth and Nicky helps Joe through it as he always does, with silent understanding and a gentle touch.
Relationships: Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani, Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 24
Kudos: 220





	Sketchbooks and Grief

It starts, as it will end, with a sketchbook. They're at a new safe house, something nicer, more modern; Copley had set it up for them after Nile's rants about staying in abandoned mines and houses and churches that look like something from 1970's horror flicks.

The four of them were sitting around watching tv, though Nicky had a book in his lap and wasn't paying attention to whatever it was. Joe picked up one of his sketchbooks, like he often did when they were watching tv and Nile was trying her best to explain things to Andy that she'd need to know now that she was mortal again.

The sketch started with a hand, a familiar hand, a hand holding a glass filled with dark liquid. Then lips, wrapped around the rim of the glass, smiling lips, that continued to cheeks and eyes and a nose and jaw and profile that was achingly familiar. The last happy moment they'd had, sitting around a table helping Nile figure everything out.

Nicky almost, almost, missed the sound Joe made he was so engrossed in his book, but nine centuries together had him so in tune with his husband that he caught it and looked up. Joe was staring at his sketchbook, his lower lip, lower jaw, trembling, a deep aching pain in his beautiful brown eyes.

He and Andy shared a look, she'd caught the sound too. “Come on Nile, we're going to the store. We need... stuff.”

Nile tried to protest, they'd just gone shopping yesterday, but Andy grabbed her arm and practically hauled her out of the house, just barely pausing to grab the keys to their new car on the way out.

Nicky set his book down, shifted closer to Joe and looked at the picture his love had drawn. _Oh._ He'd known this was coming, from the moment of Joe's first outburst in Merrick's lab, to the pub in England, to now... this was coming.

He wraps an arm around Joe's shoulders, his brave, strong, beautiful Joe, “Joe?” He speaks the single word into the silence and as it shatters so does Joe.

The sketchbook is thrown across the room with a roar that is equal parts pain and anger before Joe sags. Nicky gathers him into his arms, feeling Joe grip at his shirt as he begins to sob. The sound is wrenching, heartbreaking... No Nicky think, heart _shattering_. His beautiful Joe who loves so deeply and so much, who forgave his transgressions against his people, who forgave him ending his life because it gave him a new one... who loves this beautiful broken family they've found as much as he loves _him_.

He is breaking now because their brother, a man they have loved for 200 years, whom they have fought beside, trusted, cared for, sat beside as they waited for him to heal or revive, this man, this comrade, this _brother_ , because is there really another word for it? Has been keeping a deep dark secret all these longs years, has kept the depth of his pain from them, allowed it to turn to bitterness, to anger, to hatred.

He presses his lips to top of Joe's curls, the ones he loves so much, rocks his heart gently as he shatters over and over in his arms. Nicky knew this was coming, for how can one love so deeply and not break when that love is betrayed? How can one feel as Joe feels, love as Joe loves and not be destroyed by what happened? Joe's anger was a shield, a way to protect himself from the pain of Booker's betrayal, a way to keep them all safe from the grief that could, if Joe so chose, consume them all as Booker's had.

But that's the thing about Joe, that Nicky has discovered time and again over the centuries. His pain turns to anger yes, but there is something deep inside him that will not let it turn to bitterness, that demands an outlet, that _forces_ catharsis and that is what that sketch was, his soul demanding catharsis, saying ' _enough is enough_ ' and making Joe deal with his grief.

Joe cries himself to sleep in Nicky's arms. Nicky moves, carefully, with the skill of centuries to draw Joe fully onto the couch, his head in his lap, face pressed into his stomach. He keeps arm draped over shoulders, holding him close. The other picks up his book and he begins to read, softly but aloud, knowing his voice will comfort Joe as he sleeps, as his body recovers from the torrent of emotion and as his mind, heart, and soul start to slowly knit back together.

Joe is still asleep when Andy and Nile come back, they've bought a few things that they don't really need to justify the time away. Nile goes to the kitchen and starts to put the stuff away and get started on dinner. Andy looks at Joe a long moment, looks at Nicky next, at the same cold anger that's been simmering there since Merrick's lab, the anger that will not ebb, not for a long time.

Joe is hurting and that is the one thing that Nicky cannot abide, but this time he has no choice. Joe, and all of them, must process Booker's betrayal in their own way, in their own time, and that means Nicky must face Joe's pain, must witness it, live with it, and when Joe is better, then, then he'll be able to deal with his own. It's how they've always done it, it's how they did it after Quynh was taken from them, and it's how they'll do it now.

Andy nods to Nicky, moves and picks up the sketchbook, she closes it without looking. Joe's drawings are his own, he'll share when he's ready. She sets the book, and the pencil that went flying with the book, on the coffee table without a word, ready and waiting for Joe when he wakes up, when he's ready to put graphite to paper again, to process, in the way he does, the chasm in their lives and in his own heart.

Nicky's eyes stay on the sketchbook for a long time once Andy is in the kitchen with Nile. It always comes back to Joe's sketchbook. Always has, always will. And that's okay. As long as Joe has his sketchbooks he'll be okay... eventually.

**Author's Note:**

> Feel free to follow me on Tumblr: RandoFando-Spoonie
> 
> As always, kudos aren't necessary but appreciated.


End file.
